Posts tagged “Andrew Garfield”

★★★★☆

Michael Shannon and Andrew Garfield make for an unlikely yet compelling duo in Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes, a powerful two-hander of a thriller that loses none of its impact despite its heavy-handed nature.

After a tone-setting tracking shot which features the body of an evictee who shot himself during the course of a foreclosure we meet Dennis Nash (Garfield, sans Spidey spandex for the first time since 2010), a construction worker whose trade has been hit hard by the financial crisis. With bills mounting up and no money to pay them with, it’s not long before ruthless real-estate broker Rick Carver (Shannon) is knocking at Nash’s door and evicting him, his Mother (Laura Dern) and his young son (Noah Lomax) out of their home. Desperate to get his family out of their now squalid accommodations, Nash reluctantly accepts an offer to work for the very man who evicted him in the first place.

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★★★½☆

Freed from the burden of a seen-it-all-before origin story, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a marked improvement from its predecessor and gets more right than it does wrong, but it is still unworthy of its title.

After a flashback gives us more details on Peter Parker’s parents (more on that later), the narrative picks up from where the first left off. Peter (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) are very much in love, but Peter is still haunted by the promise he made to Gwen’s Father to stay away from her. Elsewhere, an industrial accident sees Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) transform into dangerous villain Electro, whilst Peter’s childhood friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) re-emerges with secrets of his own.

This week, on behalf of HeyUGuys I was invited to a special screening of footage from Marc Webb’s forthcoming superhero sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which included the first 15 minutes in addition to two pivotal scenes. I won’t go into too much detail about what I saw, but here are some of my takeaways from what was revealed. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of reasons to start getting excited.

As we near the end of 2013, the time has come to not only look back at the year’s best (and worst) films, but also to look forward to next year’s offerings. One of the most highly anticipated releases is The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), a sequel to Marc Webb’s not-so-amazing 2012 franchise reboot. The marketing machine has been getting into full swing over the past few weeks, from new posters and stills to not one, not two, but three ten-second teaser trailers granting us a brief look at the web-slinging hero. Now a full two-minute plus trailer has hit the web (no pun intended), and the footage gives us a closer look at what Peter/Spidey will have to overcome.

Next week, the eagerly anticipated franchise reboot The Amazing Spider-Man swings into UK cinemas (read my review here), and with its impending release, its star Andrew Garfield – who of course plays the famous scarlet-clad hero – has been asked on numerous occasions about the possibility of Spider-Man joining the Avengers at a later date.

The answer has always been a tongue-in-cheek ‘Yes’ – honestly, who wouldn’t want to be on that team?! – but there is a lot of red tape to get through in order to get to that stage, what with Sony currently owning the rights to Spider-Man meaning that Marvel will have to buy the rights back before being able to use the character.

There is no doubting that the web-slinging hero is one of the most well-known comic book characters of all time, and his presence in a future Avengers movie is at the very least intriguing to ponder.

The question therefore is; would Spidey be a good fit for the Avengers?

“It’s too soon!” “The origin story…AGAIN?!” This and more was the less than enthusiastic response which greeted the announcement of the cleverly titled The Amazing Spider-Man back in 2010, a reboot of the superhero franchise which SamRaimi began in 2002. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t among the sceptics; it had after all been only 5 years since Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, and although that movie was disappointing, it would have been intriguing to see how they might have made amends. Still, the steadily improving – if overly revealing – marketing of The Amazing Spider-Man did well to silence many of the naysayers, and director MarcWebb (500 Days of Summer) should take pride in having delivered an engaging finished product, laying a solid foundation for future sequels in the process.

All good film trailers come in two’s! Not to be outdone by yesterday’s epic 1 minute TV spot of TheAvengers, good ol’ Spidey has popped up with some new footage of his own in a brand new trailer. This take is clearly different from Sam Raimi’s earlier trilogy, but it doesn’t look any less impressive. The checkboxes for web-slinging, wall-crawling, and wisecracking are all ticked, and the darker tone may yet prove to be beneficial. With Spider-Man joining The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises in theaters later this year, this summer is shaping up to be particularly epic for comic book fans.